Help:Customization policy

As people move from one wikia to another, evolving from reader to editors to founders, it's important that they are able to take what they learn from one wikia and build on that. A key part of this learning experience is having the user interface and features be consistent. That's not to say there can't be customization and individuality, those are always important to a wikia, but the visitors should be able to rely on the interface and features being in expected places as they move around Wikia.

To customize the view your visitors see, we recommend you use the theme designer. This helps you by automatically selecting text and shading colors based on your chosen scheme. You can also upload background images and a wikia wordmark.

If you want to go further, then there is a CSS page for each wikia. This can be used to add formatting to tables and infoboxes, or to control the colors more specifically. It can also be used to add decoration, including borders and font changes to almost any part of the page. It should not be used to change the layout of the frame around the content, to remove, move or reformat the ads or Wikia bar, or to change the wikia's features and functionality.

It's also possible to change the wording of many aspects of the site via MediaWiki messages. However, we recommend care in doing this -- remember that if you rename the edit button to "Blah" no one will know what it does!

We encourage experienced users to modify the wikia for themselves rather than adding a high level of variability from the default for their users. You can do this by editing your personal CSS and JS pages -- in this space anything goes!

It's impossible to create an exhaustive list of "do's" and "don'ts" for CSS, there are so many variations! But there are some examples below to help show the key elements.

These are the basic framework of the site, and must remain in place. A visitor should always see the "Wiki Activity" button in the same place, and it should work as they expect. Some features are optional, but we prefer to turn these off via the settings, rather than them being turned off via CSS. This helps us to track the features and get accurate data on how they are being used across Wikia.

Site content pushed down for extra banner or logo space

Please don't add anything that will change the position of the article's page title and anything above it. If you want to add a banner, you can do this in the article area, but remember that this will make your content show lower on the page.

Changes to page width, right sidebar

The fluid width, including the minimum and maximum widths, and right sidebar are key elements of the Wikia look.

Added decoration to buttons, boxes, backgrounds, fonts

Formatting and decoration for your wikia is a great way to personalize and customize it. This is easiest to do via the Theme Designer, but can also be done via CSS. Please do not change the color or formatting of the Wikia logo.

Wording on buttons and other elements changed

It's possible to change many aspects of the site using MediaWiki messages, including the wording on many features. We recommend against this, it's best to have a consistent and less confusing interface, but you may have wording tweaks that suit your specific wikia more closely.

Extra buttons or links added to the interface (JavaScript)

Admins on wikias also have the ability to tweak their wikias via JavaScript. For example, this might be used to add in extra links to the wikia interface. We recommend against this, except in your personal JavaScript, because changes to Wikia may affect your code. We always try to avoid this, but if you do use JavaScript in this way, you should be aware of that risk.

Personal CSS/JS to changes ads/features/layout

Any changes are permitted in your personal CSS and JS. These are available for you to personalize your experience as much as your code knowledge allows! You can find help from many of our most experienced users on the Community Forums